Wednesday, June 4th, 2008...10:10 am
Why I Am Floored
This isn’t in any way to diminish the historic nature of Hillary Clinton’s candidacy, matter of fact, here’s to hoping that she will open the doors to many women candidates the next time around. It’s stunning that it took this long for a woman to get this close to a major party’s presidential nomination given the numbers of talented women that both parties have had in high office over the past thirty years.
Last night, the Democratic party de facto nominated an African American. For someone like me that prides himself on reading so much history, what stuns me is that it is the Democratic Party: that’s right, the party of John Calhoun, Preston Brooks, Roger Taney, “Pitchfork” Ben Tillman, Theodore Bilbo, “Bull” Connor and Ross Barnett. This is the party that housed Strom Thurmond through the first few, and most stridently segregationist, decades of his career. This history is a lot more recent than a lot of us would like to think: twice in my lifetime, George Wallace ran in and won several Democratic primaries. Heck, he even outpolled Mo Udall in 1976.
The rumble you heard last night was not only cheers for Barack Obama, but the rumbling from the graves of Tillman, Connor and company as they turn over.
I’m not saying that a single nomination can erase the segregationist history of our party, much less the country, but I can’t help but admire how far we have come in a relatively short time.
6 Comments
June 4th, 2008 at 10:29 am
It’s not just recent history. It’s current events. don’t forget Senator Robert Byrd, former member of the KKK, who once said he would rather see the US lose a war than desegregate the military.
June 4th, 2008 at 11:36 am
It was history on many levels and I am very proud to be a democrat. I am a proud Hillary supporter but I am a very, very proud Democrat and I love my party more than ever. There are a few very rude anti-Hillary people but I think they are far and few between and sometime took to the blogs to spew their anger. Hopefully they will now focus on McCain.
June 4th, 2008 at 11:56 am
Amen, Dana.
Barack’s nomination is less about Hillary being a poor candidate than it is about a generational shift.
Nevertheless, I’m extremely proud to be a Dem today.
June 4th, 2008 at 1:39 pm
Since Tedski brought up Mo Udall, let me remind everyone that Mo went through an epiphany about race during WW II, when he commanded an all-black unit in the Pacific. One of his greatest defeats, in his opinion occurred when he was assigned to defend a black soldier facing trumped up murder charges. Mo lost the case, the guy got hanged, and Mo decided to go to UA law school when he got out of the Army.
At that time the Mormon religion was, well, let’s just say they were not at the forefront the equality movement when it came to African Americans.
And, when he returned to the UA, he led efforts to end some Jim Crow traditions at the college. I’d cite specifics, but I don’t want to go off of memory and screw it up.
June 4th, 2008 at 11:05 pm
Wonderfully stated all the way around.
June 5th, 2008 at 11:08 am
“I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.” – Dr. King.
It’s a pity that the modern Democratic Party still can’t get beyond the color of a person’s skin. In that way they are still the party of “Bull” Connor and George Wallace.